Jeb Bush

With the Florida primary in the rear view mirror and Marco Rubio out of the race, Jeb Bush has endorsed Ted Cruz for president. The endorsement comes a month after Bush dropped out of the race. By waiting as long as he did, Bush accomplished two things — neither of them noble. First, he avoided endorsing Rubio, who “betrayed” him by running for president, while at the same time avoiding »

Yesterday, Donald Trump won his biggest victory yet, a decisive triumph in Florida’s winner-take-all primary. With the win, the tycoon’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party becomes overwhelmingly likely. Where was Jeb Bush during the battle for his home state’s primary? He was pouting. Spinning Bush’s failure to endorse his one-time protege Marco Rubio (whom he once touted for the vice presidency), or another non-Trump candidate, the former governor’s confidante »

Earlier this week, in a post that disputed the claim that Jeb Bush is to blame for rise of Donald Trump, I wrote that if Bush endorses Marco Rubio ahead of the Florida primary, he will have nothing to apologize for if Trump is the nominee. At the time, the speculation in Florida was that Bush likely would endorse Rubio. Today, however, the Washington Post tell us that a spokeswoman »

Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal suggests that if Jeb Bush hadn’t run for president, Donald Trump might not be a “formidable candidate.” He writes: Con­sider: a) Bush’s en­trance in the race pre­ven­ted any oth­er main­stream al­tern­at­ives from get­ting at­ten­tion for months; b) his Right to Rise su­per PAC nuked the most-elect­able al­tern­at­ive in Ru­bio with mil­lions in at­tack ads while spend­ing much less against Trump; c) his can­did­acy defined »

. . . or why you should ignore most pundits. From Vox last July: Donald Trump’s rise is great news — for Jeb Bush Donald Trump’s surge in the polls has been covered as terrible news for the GOP. But it’s fantastic news for one Republican — Jeb Bush. The rise of the bombastic celebrity mogul and the saturation media coverage of his controversial comments on illegal immigrants is a godsend for the putative frontrunner, »

I probably should add a question mark to the title of this post, since I can’t say with high confidence that the South Carolina primary actually will be the end of the presidential campaign for Jeb Bush. But yesterday, according to multiple reports, the “joyful” warrior was noticeably deflated when he appeared at the campaign event, following word that Nikki Haley was about to endorse Marco Rubio. The Washington Post »

Back in September in “Bush League De-Regulation,” I took note of Jeb Bush’s Wall Street Journal op-ed about his views on regulation. I wondered whether he really understands the problem sufficiently, and concluded: This is another sign that Bush, as good as he is in many ways, is not good enough. He doesn’t get the full depths of the problem. Like his dad and older brother. Today, as reported by »

New Hampshire voters will answer several potentially consequential questions tomorrow: How badly will Sanders beat Clinton; what will Trump’s margin of victory be; what price (if any) will Rubio pay for repetition in debating? For me, though, the biggest question is: How well will Jeb Bush do? Here’s why. There has been much speculation about the degree of winnowing the Republican field will undergo after New Hampshire. In particular, how »

Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio weren’t the only candidates exposed in last night’s debate as having changed their position on immigration reform. Rubio pointed out that Jeb Bush has also changed his. Bush’s current position, and the one set forth in a book he wrote (with an eye, surely, towards a presidential run) is that illegal immigrants should have a path to legalization but not to citizenship. But when Sen. »

Before entering the presidential race, Jeb Bush said he wanted to run “joyfully.” And when Bush appears on talk shows, he seems sunny (especially for a candidate who is running, what, in fifth place with about 5 percent support in the polls) and eager to talk policy. But meanwhile, as Steve has pointed out, Bush’s Super PAC is smearing the candidate’s one-time protege, Marco Rubio. The latest example is a »

The most infuriating thing I’ve read all week is Steve Hayes’s story in the Weekly Standard about how Jeb Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, has held its fire on Trump, instead directing its fire on the one candidate who is best positioned to win in November: Marco Rubio: In the “fight” between Donald Trump and conservatism, Trump has had few better allies than Right to Rise, the super PAC »

Jeb Bush’s campaign announced today that he has been endorsed by former senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole. Dole will serve as Bush’s National Veterans’ Chairman. I suppose the announcement was timed to coincide with Veterans’ Day. I deeply admire Bob Dole, but I am afraid that the 92-year-old’s endorsement sums up much of what is wrong with Bush’s campaign. If there is anything Republican voters want this year, it »

Until now, I have taken a benign view of Jeb Bush’s presidential candidacy. I have said from the beginning that he has zero chance of getting the Republican nomination, but he was a good governor and he has as much right to seek the nomination as anyone else. But now, Bush has turned into a negative, anti-Republican force. To an even greater degree than Donald Trump, he mouths Democratic Party »

The Iowa caucuses are in significant part about who can get their supporters to show up. Thus, one thing I wanted to watch for at yesterday’s Growth and Oppoertunity event was which candidates got supporters to the fairgrounds to cheer and hold signs. This metric would, it seemed to me, provide a rough measure of some combination of level of support and “ground game.” Unfortunately, neither Donald Trump nor Ben »

No, but he could be within a month or two. The Washington Post reports: Jeb Bush is entering a critical phase of his Republican presidential campaign, with top donors warning that the former Florida governor needs to demonstrate growth in the polls over the next month or face serious defections among supporters. . . . The warnings from top donors come as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s exit from the race »

Fox News offers a new poll of the Republican presidential field (scroll past the Pope Francis stuff to get to the GOP race). The poll shows Donald Trump still in front with 26 percent support. He’s followed by Ben Carson at 18 percent. Then come Carly Fiorina and Marco Rubio at 9 percent; Ted Cruz at 8; and Jeb Bush at 7. This poll is more favorable to Dr. Carson »

Yesterday Jeb Bush took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to outline what he would do to attack overregulation if he becomes president. He rightly calls it “the regulation tax,” and cites good scholarship on the enormous toll regulation is taking on economic growth. Indeed I think regulatory reform is more important than tax reform, though they are not mutually exclusive—so why not both? Samples: It’s time we »